When Tough Feedback Helps You to Turn Off Your Autopilot

Our behavior consists of various habits, physical, mental, emotional. Those habits trigger automatic reactions. It is like an autopilot, it clicks somewhere and we are acting without paying attention to what is happening.

Some time ago, I asked one of my superiors for feedback. He was very frank and wrote I had a problem with decision-making and drive for results. I took few hours to digest the email and then asked for a meeting.

When he put his feedback in the perspective of our past interactions, the picture became clearer. I gave him an impression that I was looking for answers from other people without taking a clear position myself. Regarding the drive for results, he said: „If you have a dream, you need to fight for it, you need to do everything possible that the dream becomes a reality.“

I was embarrassed how other people could see me. I was not like that, anyway!

A couple of months, I got similar feedback regarding my contribution in the start-up. Just using different words. After that, I really needed to pay more attention to my behavior, to my autopilot.

My decision-making was a real problem, a problem at two levels both related to the drive for results.

Without having a clear position, without knowing what I was aiming for, without taking a decision right or left, I could not fight for the outcome. I simply did not know what to fight for. This was one level.

The second level was even more surprising for me. I had always plenty of ideas but did not realize many of them. Why? I got stuck, because I did not decide if to go for them or let them be. I ended up doing nothing. No intention, no action.

Now I can not decide what to write at the end.

Maybe this one: If you get tough feedback on your behavior, decide first whether you want to deal with it or just ignore it. In case you decide to deal with it, pay attention to your autopilot. Understanding your autopilot is the first step to deal with the behavior itself.